Take a mom of 3, stir in 4 vegan cookbooks, add a rounded cup of staying at home, and mix with a hefty pinch of recipe testing!

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Oyster Mushroom Kit Giveaway

Giveaway time! I was recently contacted by Back to the Roots, a 100% sustainable urban mushroom farm. Here's the brief story on this company:

Two young, creative-minded guys are about to graduate from university, and during their last semester, they take on an experiment. They discover they can grow gourmet mushrooms entirely on recycled coffee grounds! They decide to turn down their awaiting job offers and become full-time mushroom farmers. And, before any parents out their shudder at that thought of turning down reliable salaries to grow some mushrooms, this little venture has bloomed! Back to the Roots now produces about 500 lbs/week of fresh oyster mushrooms. And, they are doing some environmental good by diverting 10,000 lbs/wk of coffee grounds from Peet's Coffee & Tea to use as soil for the mushrooms.

Earlier this year, they launched an Easy-to-Grow Gourmet Mushroom Garden. This allows home cooks to grow up to 1 lb of delicious oyster mushrooms at home in as little as 10 days, and yield multiple crops. Very little effort it required, just need to leave it indoors on a kitchen window-sill (and this kit also uses recycled coffee grounds)! I haven't tried the kit myself, but love the idea. Often, I see oyster mushrooms in the store, and they are way past fresh and not worth buying. To have the freshest oyster mushrooms at your fingertips - delightful!

These kits are available in many Whole Foods stores, but they are giving one away to one of you! (must be a US resident) Also, they are offering a 20% discount to my readers for any online orders. Use this code bevegan20 (exp. 11/15/2010).

For your chance to win, simply enter your comment on this post (one comment per person). You can just leave your name, or tell us how you'd cook or prepare those fresh oyster mushrooms! I will announce the winner this coming week.*

Also, you may be interested to know that through the month of November, Back to the Roots is working on a big campaign to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer awareness (donating 5% of all sales). They feel it's a great way to educate the community on the health benefits of oyster mushrooms, and also give back to a cause close to their hearts, as one of the co-founders is a cancer survivor.

So, go ahead and enter, and also check out this clips of Nikhil and Alex, the founders of Back to the Roots, on the Carson Daly show:

*I prefer not to ask for e-mail addresses for contests, as this publicizes e-mail addresses for any and all readers. So, when I have announced the winner, I will have that person e-mail me so we can arrange further details.

My fiance has actually been buying up lots of mushroom books so he can start rowing them in our loft! We've been using mushrooms a lot in our cooking lately. Oyster, shitake, beech. Oyster mushrooms are my favourite. So meaty.

i was just looking at their site a couple of days ago. i've managed to kill everything i've tried to grow in my window seal with the exception of green onions. i really want to try this out but am a little hesitant with my death-curse thumb

I, too, have had less than good luck finding nice oyster mushrooms in stores. The first thing I would do would be to use them in a stuffing for a homemade tofu-seitan unturkey for Thanksgiving. The next thing would definitely be an oyster mushroom chowder. Then I'd saute them in olive oil with garlic, thyme and rosemary, and serve them side-by-side with shiitakes prepared the same way, as an appetizer. I could go on but will spare you a looong list . . .

I would saute them over high heat with a tiny bit of coconut oil with some garlic, then add black pepper, red pepper flakes, and splashes of both lemon juice and tamari. Oyster mushrooms are my favorites!

Sounds fabulous!! A few months ago, I veganized my husband's favorite dish from his native country/culture - Moroccan b'stilla, but the spicy variety (the non-veg kind has shrimp, calamari, and fish in it). I put oyster mushrooms in it and it was fantastic!! I'd love to try it again.